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(Re)thinking of The American Dream 2 - 4 bobbin lace 5-6 works 7 - 34 about 43 - 44 imprint 45 - 46
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“Why is it so hard To make it in America I tried so hard To make it in America A land of milk and honey A land supposed to be built with love It takes love and understanding To live and let live...�1
(Re)thinking of The American Dream is an artistic project that deals with several aspects of the
American Dream. Based on research of mass and social media, single images of political significance from several areas of the American society were selected and transformed into drawings. The bobbin lace pictures are based on drawings that were transferred to and stylized in lace work. The narratives of the single lace works combine contemporary picture language and the revitalization of a rare and old craft technic. This series reflects inner and outer topics of the American society such as social inequality, meritocracy, neoliberalism, poverty, structural change, global warming, and the overuse of natural resources. The critical artistic approach opens new views on the complexity and inner connections of several areas of the American Dream. This series is produced by the Berlin based artist project group REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT. The lace works and drawings are a transatlantic collaboration between Martin Keil, the former distinguished visiting artist of the University of Rhode Island, and his mother Rotraut Keil, a German textile designer. 2
In “The Epic of America” written in 1931 during the early stages of the Great Depression, James Truslow Adams described the American Dream as “a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” In the civil right movement in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the traditional vision of the nation’s ideals, placing his version of the American Dream at the center of the nation’s consciousness: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” The American Dream rooted in the Declaration of Independence is a set of ideals of equality, equal opportunities, liberty, democracy and rights, that is currently in transition. The values generations of immigrants once shared have nearly disappeared. For many Americans, the dream is not accessible anymore. The implicit promise of upward social mobility in the American Dream can no longer be taken for granted by the middle classes who have previously been relatively secure in their privilege. Society today is not divided by race and religion, but rather by socio-economic class. The American Dream was once a projection of opportunity for social advancement for many generations. The belief that one can succeed by working hard no longer applies to today’s society. It seems that the belief in the future is lost. “Hope is being privatized. Throughout the world, especially in the United States (...), a seismic shift is underway, displacing aspirations and responsibilities from the larger society to our own individual universes.”2 The majority of American adults no longer lead middle class lives. This is a demographic reality shaped by decades of widening inequality, declining industry, and the erosion of financial stability and family-wage jobs. 3 The new forms of capitalism emphasize shortterm labour and institutional fragmentation; the effect of this economic system has been that workers cannot sustain supportive social relations with one another. 4
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Social inequality excludes them from prosperity, higher education, and social benefits such as healthcare. Instead of shared rewards for the collective efforts at social reform, there were individually appropiated spoils on competition. 5 Why are more and more people giving up on this dream? Increasing inequality through inherited wealth, the exploitation and consumption of natural resources, and labor in a hostile meritocracy have created a number of problems. The control of power and wealth is in the hands of a minority that undermines the political system to maintain and extend their influence. It remains a fragmented and insecure society that no longer has trust in their own future and in their political leaders and institutions. Social exclusion weakens the democratic system and its values. Economic growth and prosperity have to be reinterpreted and new growth indicators are necessary for a future-proof development. The ideals of the American Dream appear as an antagonism today, but a new reinterpretation can raise a critical awareness and help to transform the American Dream in the 21st century.
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Bradley, Charles, Lyrics “Why is it so hard” from LP “No Time for Dreaming”, Written by Charles Bradley, Thomas Brenneck, Leon Michels, Homer Steinweiss, Daptone Records, 2011.
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http://bostonreview.net/us-book-ideas/ronaldaronson-privatization-hope. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/11/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-just-about-everywhere-in-america/
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Sennett, Richard, “Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation”, p. 279, Yale University Press, 2013.
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Baumann, Zygmunt, “Retrotopia”, p. 12 (Kindle Edition), Polity Press Cambridge, 2017.
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bobbin lace
Bobbin lace was invented in the 16th century in Italy. The first pattern books were published in Venice in the late 16th century. Bobbin lace was made as decorative and ornamental element for clothes, which significantly influenced the fashion of European roals and nobles of the renaissance and baroque periods. The distribution of bobbin lace in the Ore Mountains started in the end of the 16th century. This lace was made by women who worked out of their homes as lace-workers to provide income for the poor miner families. With the beginning industrialization of the textile industry in the middle of the 19th century, bobbin lace was manufactured by machines. Since the decline of the textile industry due to deindustrialization in former East Germany in the 1990s, the continuity of the long tradition has been endangered.
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Bobbin Lace on the pillow during the working process
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works
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Great Seal lace, 9,70 x 12,00 inches, 2016
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The Lost Dream drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 9
The Lost Dream lace, 13,58 x 9,56 inches, 2016 10
Rust Belt drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 11
Rust Belt lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 12
Trading Floor drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 13
Trading Floor lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 14
Tesla production line drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 15
Tesla production line lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 16
Pesticide drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 17
Pesticide lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 18
Landfill Apex, Nevada drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2017 19
Landfill Apex, Nevada lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2017 20
California Reservoir drawing, 17 x 11 inches, 2016 21
California Reservoir lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016
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Sandy drawing, 11 x 17 inches,, 2016 23
Sandy lace, 9,56 x13,58 inches, 2016 24
Irma drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2017 25
Irma lace, 9,56 x13,58 inches, 2017 26
Santa Rosa drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2017 27
Santa Rosa lace, 9,56 x13,58 inches, 2017 28
Air Strike drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 29
Air Strike lace, 12,60 x 8,27 inches, 2016 30
Sphere of Inluence drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 31
Sphere of Inluence lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 32
Keystone Pipeline ,Dakota drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 33
Keystone Pipeline, Dakota lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 34
Ferguson drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 35
Ferguson lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2016 36
Charlottesville drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2017 37
Charlottesville lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2017 38
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Women’s March drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2017 39
Women’s March lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2017 40
Borderline drawing, 11 x 17 inches, 2017 41
Borderline lace, 9,56 x 13,58 inches, 2017 42
about
Textile designer Rotraut Keil, born in 1948 in RĂźbenau, Germany, studied textile design at the College of Applied Art in Schneeberg. After her teaching position, she worked in the bobbin lace manufactury in Schwarzenberg until its closing. Numerous awards, participations in art fairs and exhibitions e.g. in Torino (Italy), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Lille (France), Linz (Austria) and the worlds fair in Sevilla (Spain) in 1992 exhibited her versatile artistic creations. Visual artist Martin Keil, born in 1968 in Schlema, Germany, studied at the Academy of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein in Halle, at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, at the Universidad de Barcelona, Spain, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, Germany. As the co-author of the artistic project group REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT (RG), which he operates together with artist Henrik Mayer, he participated in numerous exhibitions and artistic installations worldwide, especially in participative and public art projects.
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REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT (whose German implications range from “Cleaning Service” to
“Purification Society”) is an artists’ project group that works at the point of intersection between art and social reality. Martin Keil and Henrik Mayer first came together to create “RG”. The artists work with partners from different backgrounds, providing platforms for interdisciplinary activities. Their way of working as part of their social practice is based on the positive potential of connecting different spheres of society. Their social practice are interventions and participatory processes in order to create social consciousness and stimulate communication between people. RG work site specific and apply an open working method that is process based and includes participation. Specific interventions on spot are designed based on a profound communication process with communities. The group REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT look at the concept of creating social and environmental practice with a regard to practicability and in anticipating solutions. RG initiates projects that generate new relations and interest groups of people. In their way of working they follow a cognitive concept of art. This holistic and interdisciplinary examination compares and combines environmental, cultural, social and economic theories and approaches. A critical analysis of thematic complexes will point differences and common grounds. The projects of REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT make emancipatory processes aware to all people they include and therefore create the pre-conditions for social renewal. REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT understands contemporary art as a catalyst of social and political processes. Projects and works have been widely shown in museums, biennals and in the public space, e.g. in Germany and many other European countries, as well as USA, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Australia. www.reinigungsgesellschaft.de
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Imprint
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Martin Keil phone: 401 6014137 69 Longview Drive mail: martin.keil@gmx.net 02882 Narragansett RI web: reinigungsgesellschaft.de USA Fanningerstr. 22 10365 Berlin Germany 46